


Kissing on the Intarwebs

by schemingreader



Series: Crossing Brooklyn Ferry [1]
Category: Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, The Avengers (2012), The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Brooklyn, First Kiss, M/M, Virgin Steve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-11
Updated: 2013-02-11
Packaged: 2017-11-28 22:15:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/679453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/schemingreader/pseuds/schemingreader
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I love it when Cap calls it 'the Google,'" Clint said.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kissing on the Intarwebs

**Author's Note:**

> I have to relink to the heart-stoppingly amazing illustration for the story, [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/710875) by 40i4-- _in color_.

Clint was snickering again. "I love that. "

"What?" Natasha asked. She wasn't staying over in the Avengers Tower, but sometimes she looked in on them right after a big battle. Bruce kept warning them it was because Fury wanted better reports, but Steve didn't mind. She fought hard; it was good she was with them. 

She looked right at Steve and smirked around her slice of pizza. She could probably read his thoughts.

"I love it when Cap calls it 'the Google,'" Clint said. 

"Tony calls it that," Steve said. "It's ironic."

"You are such a hipster!" Clint said. 

"Har-de-har-har," Steve muttered. 

"Damn, you look grim." 

Naturally, he looked grim. He was looking at a series of images of himself in a clinch with a male soldier from his team. Clint had passed over his tablet with a whole set of them. 

Not a soldier. Tony didn't like to be called a soldier. A male comrade, then—images of himself kissing a male comrade. 

"It looks very real," Steve said. "Well, maybe not that one. That doesn't look like us." 

"That was made with posing software," Natasha said. "The figures don't look human."

"But these do," Steve said. "This one looks like a real photo." 

"The software to make these is easy to get," Clint said. 

"Photoshop?" Steve guessed. Clint looked slightly surprised, but recovered and nodded. 

"Look, we're all tired," Bruce said. 

Bruce was tired. He looked terrible. His skin was pale and still slightly greenish—not like the Hulk, like an exhausted white person. Steve passed him a slice of mushroom pizza on a plate. He took it and looked at it. 

"Go to bed, Bruce," Tony said. He was in a bathrobe and pajama bottoms, rubbing a towel over his wet hair. 

"He should eat first," Steve said. 

"Aw Cap," Tony said, taking in what they were looking at. "Don't look at those. Seriously. People play with my photos all the time—sorry you got dragged into that."

"Like it's only about you, Ego Man," Clint said. 

"I don't know," Tony said. "I think they would believe anything about me, but I can't see people thinking that of Captain America."

"Thinking what?" Steve asked. 

Tony shrugged expressively. 

"I kiss people," Steve said. 

"Men? Really?" Tony didn't look at him. 

"I…" Steve began. "Why not? Men are people."

"I think you're missing the point," Tony said. 

Natasha was just staring at him. He turned toward the pizza but he continued to feel her eyes, boring through him. He took another bite and put his slice down. He'd never get accustomed to eating something so messy with his fingers. 

"I think what Steve is trying to say…" Bruce began.

"It's fine," Steve said loudly. "There are no fraternization rules because we're not in the Army, so." 

Clint smiled very sweetly. "You're a real stand-up guy, Cap." 

"What?" Tony looked confused. 

"Let's not make a mountain out of a molehill," Steve said. He picked up his pizza slice again and tried to bend the crust in like other people did. He put it down. "This isn't any different than someone drawing a silly cartoon. May I have a fork?"

Natasha passed him silverware and a napkin. This was the sort of thing Tony was going to be merciless about, wasn't he? He would razz Steve forever for not eating pizza like a real New Yorker. 

Tony was still standing there, thinking. 

"You don't mind if people think you're gay?" Tony said, suddenly and loudly.

"They don't think I'm gay. They just think you're cute," Steve said. Tony grinned back at him. "No one is going to make a big deal about this, right? It's just like someone wrote graffiti about us or something." 

"I can't believe you eat pizza with a knife and fork," Tony said.

* * *

Steve had to hope that Tony was inventing something, again. Every time he saw Tony in the Avengers Tower, Tony got all quiet, like he was cooking something up. 

The thing about Tony was, he was always making things for people, but never hanging around to talk. He got up from every conversation, rushing to solve a problem for someone, often before they'd finished greeting him. He'd see you and think of something about you, and skip the step of telling you why he was leaving and where he was going. He did it with the whole team. He had new arrows for Clint every few weeks, and special fabric for Bruce's clothing so the Hulk wouldn't be nude, and a weird, portable electronic shield—a small handheld device that made a force field, so that Steve couldn't get caught without it. 

Sometimes Tony left small gifts, here and there. Steve would get home from a run in the park to find an mp3 player full of music that Tony had put together for him, or a t-shirt with a goofy slogan referring to something someone had said at breakfast, or some health-food store energy drink. 

He would hardly accept anyone's thanks. So much generosity, as though Tony didn't see that he was part of the team, didn't understand that they liked him for himself.

* * *

It had only been a few months since Steve had woken in the SHIELD facility in Times Square. After the attack on New York, they hadn't had many missions. There'd been a brief trip to Wakanda and a week of fighting in Latveria, and a few other short trips out of town, but things had been relatively quiet.

They were just hanging around in New York now, helping at the sites where people were rebuilding from the alien attack, visiting children in the hospital, and training. Steve went to martial arts classes and took some dancing lessons, visited the public library and attended free lectures. 

It was the second time he had gone to Nerd Nite in Brooklyn and he hadn't checked who was speaking—turned out it was Tony, speaking on sustainable energy. He had given the lecture the hip, ironic title, "Future Energy of the Future." It wasn't what was listed on the schedule, Steve found when he checked, so maybe a last-minute thing. 

It was surprising how Tony lit up in front of a group. When he stayed in the Tower, he didn't turn on this level of charisma. His eyes scanned the room, trying to make contact with people—the opposite of what he did at home. 

At some point Tony seemed to notice that he was looking at Steve, and raised his eyebrows a little, but didn't pause. Good. In the old days, Steve wasn't recognized because he was only Captain America when he wore the uniform. These days, the Avengers were out in public in civvies, and that meant people had seen his picture without the cowl. If Tony made a big deal out of seeing him in the audience, others would too. 

Even with these eyeglasses, he thought some New Yorkers recognized him. They were just too suave to give him grief about being famous. 

Tony explained how solar cells were still too expensive, and why he wanted to work more on solar than on arc reactor technology. "They're both clean in the sense that they don't require superheroes to help with waste disposal," he said. There was an appreciative titter from the crowd and everyone turned to look at Steve. 

So much for not being recognized. He took off his stupid glasses and stuck them in his shirt pocket. 

Tony continued, explaining why the arc reactor was more economical right now, because the amount of vibranium it used was so small, but that he didn't want to destabilize the countries with large vibranium deposits by making it the main sustainable energy long-term. He said he believed true sustainability was not far off, but would require more students in science, technology, engineering and math. 

Instead of bragging about his contributions to the technology, Tony wound up the talk with a series of slides about people who were revolutionizing the teaching of math and interesting students in science.

Steve looked down at his notes. He'd drawn a small figure in the margin—the Iron Man suit, holding a pointer and flying at a chalkboard. 

They probably didn't use chalkboards anymore. 

He sketched a little picture of himself as a boy at a desk with his hands folded. The audience applauded and people began to ask questions. 

Since they hadn't known he was coming, most of the questions were appropriate ones about the lecture. No one had prepared any of those long, "Remember when your company sold weapons to this evil country for that terrible war?" questions that always made Tony act like one of his robots, jerky and automatic. 

Someone did ask, "Are you working on all these technologies that will benefit civilians because you feel guilty about making money off of wars? but Tony just answered, "Essentially, yes," and everyone, including the questioner, laughed a little. 

Then a young man walked up to the microphone and said, "I see that your boyfriend Steve Rogers is here in the audience. Can I just say how amazing it is that you are out about your bisexuality?" The audience began to cheer. 

Tony squinted and frowned. "He's not my –" and Steve waved a hand in front of his chest. He hoped this was the universal sign for "Ix-nay on the enial-day." Tony smiled uneasily and said, "Well, thank you all for listening," and got out from behind the podium, fast. 

He motioned with his head toward the exit behind Steve, and they got out of the room like the place was on fire. 

Or, considering that it was Tony, like another place was on fire and they had to get over there fast to put it out. 

In the alley outside the emergency exit—Steve hadn't been beaten up in this one as a kid, he didn't think, but it sure looked familiar—he caught Tony's arm. "Thanks for waiting to deal with that one until we could talk about it."

"OK, why not set the record straight, so to speak?"

"It's all right if you want to do that," Steve said. "Maybe you want a spread about dating Pepper for a magazine or something. For me, I think it's important not to be defensive about having a boyfriend, even if I don't have one." They walked down the block toward the East River. 

"I'm—Pepper broke it off," Tony said. "But you're not gay."

"This isn't about me, or you. It's about principle, and setting an example. It's about supporting the people who serve our country. I knew fellas, honorable soldiers, who lived in fear of a blue ticket, and it apparently persisted until just a year or so ago."

"But 'don't ask don't tell' is over." 

"But DOMA is still law," Steve said, "And people still bully gay kids. I don't like bullying." 

"How do you even know about all this stuff? How did you turn into Captain Progressive?"

"For pete's sake, Tony, I know how to read." 

"But you're not gay," Tony said again. 

"Who the hell cares?" Steve said. They were standing at the dock of the East River Ferry. The city was jeweled with light from across the river. Steve leaned over and rested his forearms on the rail and looked out over the water. "My sexuality is not the point." 

"Wow," Tony said. He leaned on the rail, too. Steve could feel how close he was. "Your sexuality—well, it's at least theoretically important to you, right? Won't it be a problem if you, uh, when you, I mean, I'm sure women just throw themselves at you and all, but…"

"Tony," Steve said. His face was hot, which probably meant he was all red. "Stop." 

"I mean, Clint said he thought you were doing it to support gay and lesbian soldiers," Tony said. 

"Well, Clint was right." 

"All right," Tony said. "Because I would kiss you, if you liked that kind of thing." 

Steve didn't know whether he liked that kind of thing. His heart was pounding like it did when he was about to jump out of a plane. He turned to face Tony, who was a little shorter, and looked at him. Tony wrapped his arms around him so that they fit together, and his face was so close. Steve brought his mouth down onto Tony's, and their lips touched, and then their tongues. Tony's hand slid up Steve's chest, over his nipple, and Steve shivered. 

"You sweet--" Tony said, and his voice quavered as he swallowed what he was going to say.

Steve hushed him by bending to kiss him again. Tony threaded his fingers through Steve's hair. A foghorn sounded.

Steve pulled away a little, but not too much. He hoped they just looked like two friends in conversation. He couldn't stop looking into Tony's eyes. 

"Worried someone will take our picture?" Tony asked. 

Steve tilted his head. "No."

**Author's Note:**

> A fill for [this prompt](http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/13316.html?thread=32081924#t32081924) on the Avenger Kinkmeme: "There are shots all around the web showing Steve and Tony kissing...but they are fake! Go wild from there." Uh...I didn't exactly go wild. I went to Brooklyn. Rexluscus graciously beta-read this.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Kissing on the Intarwebs illustration](https://archiveofourown.org/works/710875) by [40i4](https://archiveofourown.org/users/40i4/pseuds/40i4)




End file.
